For the fourth year in a row, gross revenue at Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft has dipped.

Down 6 percent, to $429.5 million, in 2010, it has dropped by 27 percent since 2007, when it was $587 million, reports the Am Law Daily.

Nonetheless, profit per partner is a healthy $2.39 million and is up slightly since the previous year, the article notes, due to cost containment.

Dechert’s revenue also is down, by 9 percent, although prudent management enabled the firm to post a 2.6 percent increase in partner profits, putting PPP just over the $2 million mark, reports another Am Law Daily post.

Meanwhile, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld had a banner year in which profit per partner soared more than 10 percent, and revenue also was up about 2.5 percent, a third Am Law Daily post says. The firm attributes its improving bottom line to increased efficiencies.

Lawyer reductions starting in 2008, which included more than 40 partners, as well as staff cutbacks made the difference, firm chairman R. Bruce McLean tells the legal publication. “While it was painful doing, the reshaping of the firm, the benefits are fairly clear in the results that we’ve obtained.”